The Bewitchin' Pool
by scoutfinches
Summary: A modern take on the supposed final episode of "The Twilight Zone". What would happen if the same children and the same parents lived in here and now...
1. Chapter 1

_As always, as you have been told, you unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - one of sound, sight, and of mind. You're _

_moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas._

_You, my dear friend, have crossed into the Twilight Zone._

The story you are about to listen to is here and now.

You many wonder where "here" is. You ponder over the fact that "here" might not be really... Here.

Is there a way out of where you are? With your smartphones and your tablets and your mindless way of life?

Does anyone take photographs with Polaroids anymore? Do they listen to records and the radio?

_Maybe one group of people, children, do still... In the Twilight Zone._


	2. Chapter 2

Notice the children's names.. Do you see the play on words? Well, if you watch the actual episode, it's actually connected. And sadly, the creators of the show came up with that. Not me.

Well, enjoy!

- Scout

_A small town family goes through many hardships._

As churchgoers and prospectors of faith, they have more than few limitations.

Despite upholding such a grand facade, is it really what it seems to be?

Being rich, faithful, and powerful does have its perks, yes, certainly. But to me, there are many more downfalls.

The mother, one who has tried so hard to mend the relationship between her and her husband, has finally given up.

Praying and reading verses was not enough. With tragedy, it usually never is.

She, Missus Gloria Sharewood, declares she must break the news with her husband, Gil.

By the pool, shortly before her family meeting, her young daughter, Sport, dabbles on her cell phone by the pool.

"Have you seen your brother? We need to have a talk!"

Sport shrugged her shoulders. "No. Not since last night."

"I've looked everywhere!"

"Alright... Will things change around here?" Her doe eyes were lifted from the device and instead focused on the eyes of her mother.

"Yes, dear."

"For the better?"

"Yes, you bet your sweet soul they are!"

Excited, Sport shuts off her phone. Her mother only walks away.

"I expect you two for lunch. Now go find you brother!"

Little did Missus Sharewood know that Jeb, her even younger son, was right underneath the water.

I_n a complete, utter, elsewhere._


	3. Chapter 3

_Mysteriously, Jeb reappeared just in time, with his elder sister by his side. Gil awaited them standing tall, not being more happy in his_

_life to leave the woman he hated most behind for good._

He loved her once; however, he had fallen out of the hole again.

"Children, your father and I are getting a divorce."

Unknowing of the idea, due to living in the small, Christian, Indiana town their entire lives, divorce was unfamiliar. It existed, they

knew, but they had never witnessed the occurrence. Not even once.

"If you don't know what that means, it means your father and I are moving on. Going on our separate ways."

Gil coughed. "It means you have to choose. Do you want to live with me, or do you want to live with her?"

Sport frowned, her younger brother did likewise. "We just want it the way it was! We can be a big happy family again! Jeb and I won't

fight anymore! We won't yell or holler! We just want it like it was!"

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Her father told her. "Neither of us want that."

"Amen!" Her mother agreed. "It's either I or him. Make up your minds, children!"

"No! We want it the way it was!" Jeb was fuming.

Sport became angry as well. "We should go back!"

The parents were confused. Back where, you ask? Here? There?

"Sport, she said we were lucky to be there two times!"

"Jeb, it's safer that way! Come on!"

The children ran to the pool, both fully clothed. The dived into the clear, saltwater.

"Kids! You get back here!" Their father had become concerned. What were his children doing?

"No, we have to get back to Aunt T.!"

_Aunt T.? Who is she? They never had a aunt..._

The children swam underneath the water. At first, the parents thought they were going to peek their small heads above the water again

as they always had. They assumed they would come back.

One minuted passed. Then two, and then three.

"Gil, they're gonna drown! Save them!"

The formerly loving husband leaped into the pool to save them. He frantically searched to no avail.

"They're not in the water! They're gone, they're gone!"

One more time, unbeknownst to the parents, the boy and girl found a small door on the bottom of their swimming pool. A portal to

fantasy and elation awaited at the bottom.

_One that could only be found behind the door of imagination..._


	4. Chapter 4

_These events are correlated, my dear reader._

_Lonely, unloved children do not just stick around if they have to. If needed, they will run and they will latch onto unrelated to adults_

_like leeches. Clinging until they felt just as validated as the would have with a real relative._

_That is where the door in the pool comes into play._ It began a few days prior to the announcement. A day in which Sport was doing

what she always had. The average, twelve year old, nonsense.

Instagram pictures, Twitter feeds, and Facebook messages. All of which she was too young for anyhow.

Despite the rules, children have to make mistakes to learn, do they not?

Even with these resources, she was deprived of friendship. She was a mere follower amongst the more popular children in her school.

Followers always follow unless they make their own path. And Sport, had not.

Jeb, her ten year old, smart mouth, chubby little brother was tossing frisbees and balls across the pool.

"Hey! You wanna have some real fun? Hey!"

Sport and Jeb were both alarmed and let their ears follow the sound.

A little boy in a straw hat was in the middle of their swimming pool.

"Who are you?" The sister questioned.

No response.

"Come on! Let's go!"

Jeb smiled. "I don't see why not? Sport! Come on!"

Sport only watched as he got into the pool.

Then, she realized, why did she want to just sit there and top on that phone? Why did she want to crane her neck to see people she

never really spoke to enjoying themselves when she never enjoyed herself?

If she was an adult, she would have said, "To hell with it!"

She plunged herself into the water and followed the strange, Sawyeresque boy into the water.

Within seconds she was breathing air again.

Fresh air; the smell of the forest; the laughs of fellow children and young adolescents.

"Where are we?" Both of the Sharewood children were bewildered. Never, ever, had they seen a place like that in all their lives.

The boy jumped onto a log above the water and helped the siblings out of the new body of water; a river.

"You're at Aunt T.'s place!"

_As I normally do, I think I need to explain this. Junior citizens deprived of love and care by their families are given these portals to their_

_ultimate fantasy. The portal's destination is Aunt T.'s tiny house by the river. There is that one place I told you of earlier. Children take_

_pictures with cameras facing forward. They listen to record players and write little stories on typewriters. The groups play jump rope and_

_hopscotch and go on the swings. They swim in the little river and always speak face to face; eye to eye._

Places like these were once bountiful. In our modern age, uses of the particular items I spoke of are merely trends. As are the phones

almost every person far and wide owns and the web on which they all surf. One day, all of these things will be left behind in the speed of

time. We will remember them as jokes. Like we do with Aunt T.'s collection and Walkmen. However, Aunt T.'s small home is stuck in time.

Stuck in time and in another dimension.

"Come on! Follow me!"

Now the boy wanted to played, and the newbies followed him in suit.

They whizzed past the other children. All of them of different ages and varieties.

When the boy in the straw hat slammed the door into the house, the siblings paused.

"Sport, what's in there?"

"It's just their house. They live here.. In this place."

Jeb ran into the house and left his sister alone at the door.

She wanted to turn back and go home, to where she belonged.

First and foremost, she had to get her brother out of there.

She took a reluctant step into the kitchen, where a raggedy, scrawny old woman was waiting, as if she was expecting her.

"Oh dear! Another one?" A gaps and a toothy smile were both directed at Sport.

"Tak a seat at the table darling, and help frost that cake for me! Your brother is mightily skilled!"

She saw Jeb and the straw hat boy doing just that. Jeb was getting whir a bit of the work done.

_How did she know Jeb was my brother?_

She was perched at the chair at the end of the long dining table, deeming her the oldest.

When given a knife, she began to assist the boys with their chore.

"Who's that woman?" Sport glanced at the boy in the straw hat.

"Why, that's Aunt T.! She runs this place and takes good care of us!"

"Crap! We're all out!" Jeb cried. "I was doing such a good job!"

"It's alright, children. I think it's the perfect time to show you around! I assign you your chords and show you your rooms if you'd like

to!"

Sport froze in her place. "Ma'am, we didn't come here to stay. I'm sorry... We have to go home now." She grabbed her brother's wrist.

"Jeb, let's go home!"

"No! I wanna stay here!" He wriggled himself out of his sister's grip and ran to Aunt T.

Sport frowned. "Things are going to change! Maybe we can come back again!"

She walked out the door; her brother followed.

A fact they didn't know that normally, no one ever came back again.

_Only under certain circumstances. Ones not seen by the naked, human eye._


	5. Chapter 5

_The evening brought more and more sadness to Jeb, and maybe a slight amount of pride in Sport._

She thought she'd rather stay in the modern age. Even though she might had fancied the boy in the straw hat.

Their parents still fought constantly as they always had. And their screeches still sounded up two floors in their bedrooms.

Afterwards, first thing in the morning, Jeb put on his nicest clothes and jumped back into the pool.

By pure coincidence, it seems, he arrived back to the house, the river, and the children.

The boy awaited him on the log as he had for many before.

"I knew you'd come back! Come on!"

The boys ran together back into the house.

"You're back, huh? Where's your sister?" Aunt T. was already watching. Waiting for the two siblings to become a permanent part of

their family.

"She didn't come. She's no fun."

"Alrighty, mister! I'll get you some chores to do. Sit down and shine those shoes for me, will you?" She turned in the record player

while asking him this. There were no CDs or even cassette tapes. Her little cottage was trapped in another time.

Jeb sat down at the table, in front of the pile of shoes and started scrubbing them. The boy in the hat did the same.

"Why do you have us do chores?"

Aunt T. laughed.

"To show you the value and honor of labor."

Then why don't you do any?

Jeb was just about to ask that question, but a tapping in the window interrupted his thoughts.

It was Sport. She was standing in front of the window.

"Come in, dear! Come in!"

"I can't! I'm dripping wet!"

Aunt T. offered her a towel. "You'll be alright. Come inside."

Sport then walked in the door.

"Jeb... Mom and dad are looking for you... They said things were going to change. We're going to go on trips and be a family again!"

"And go where?"

"Wherever we want. It doesn't matter."

Jeb's eyes lit up instantly. A whole world, different from the one he was in and the one he left appeared before his eyes.

"I can't believe it! Let's go home! Thank you so much, all of you!"

The children ran away, and the old woman waved goodbye.

_She knew, oh yes she did. They were going to come back. If they came back twice, they would come back once more._

_After arriving the third time, the children never returned home._


	6. Chapter 6

_Once again, the announcement was given to the children. This time, you know what happens anyhow. Nonetheless, their lives were to change forever._

"Children, your father and I are getting a divorce. If you don't know what that means, it means your father and I are moving on. Going on our separate ways."

Gil coughed. "It means you have to choose. Do you want to live with me, or do you want to live with her?"

Sport frowned, her younger brother did as well. "We just want it the way it was! We can be a big happy family again! Jeb and I won't

fight anymore! We won't yell or holler! We just want it like it was!"

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Her father told her. "Neither of us want that."

"Amen!" Her mother agreed. "It's either I or him. Make up your minds, children!"

Sport's first initial idea was to run away.

To where? She wondered. Where on earth?

Then, it hit her. The place she only dragged Jeb away from... The place where she insisted they not stay.

The little cottage by the river.

No! We want it the way it was!" Jeb was still screaming.

Sport became loud, distraught, and vocal. "We should go back!"

"Sport, she said we were lucky to be there two times!"

"Jeb, it's safer that way! Come on!"

The children ran to the pool, both fully clothed. The dived into the clear saltwater.

"Kids! You get back here!" Their father voiced his concern.

"No, we have to get back to Aunt T.!"

The children swam underneath the surface and never went up for another breath. As I stated earlier, the parents had no idea of the home

of Aunt T. They just knew they were underneath the water. As they concluded, helpless.

One minuted passed. Then two, and then three.

"Gil, they're gonna drown! Save them!"

The formerly loving husband leaped into the pool to save his formerly beloved children. No to avail.

"They're not in the water! They're gone, they're gone!"

_One last time, unknown to the quarreling parents parents, the boy and girl both found a small door on the bottom of their swimming pool._

_It is not one that is seen or offered in brochures. One that not even all the money in the entire world could buy._

_It is a door that leads to every unloved child's fantasy. The love of a grandmother. To some, it was the love of a widowed father with a_

_law office and a pocket watch. For others, it was a solid family like their own._

_It is one door in different locations. One universe in many. It brings elation and excitement and happiness to these children._

_Like I mentioned multiple times, it is in a fifth dimension. Not seen or heard of by most of man._

_Only time and space could tell what had happened to their once dear children..._


	7. Chapter 7

_A couple of days have passed since their final arrival at the riverside playground._

Sport had grown quite fond of the typewriter and used that instead of her cell phone. She was closest to the boy in the straw hat, but

befriended many more of the girls around the area.

Jeb played frequently on jump rope and bragged about how he was right the entire time. He became popular; if he was in school, I'd say

he was the class clown.

Things were much better off with the elderly woman and her other children, which have been loved since they arrived.

She had a twitch in her eye and a limp; calloused fingertips and wrinkle. Bad eyesight too. But she knew what the kids needed, and she

provided that.

That afternoon, she called Sport, Jeb, and the Sawyeresque boy to share some cake the others made with her.

They were talking, joking, and enjoying themselves as they never had with their parents.

Gloria Sharewood's voice echoed through the air.

"Sport? Jeb? Children? Where are you? Come back!"

Sport dropped her fork and looked up at the ceiling.

"Did I hear something? A voice?"

"Don't worry, dear! It'll go away eventually. Would you like another piece of cake?" Aunt T. knew all too well what these voices were.

She wanted to make sure the children were to never go back.

"Yes ma'am!"

They all went back to their lighthearted fun as if nothing had ever happened.

_Parents, keep in mind that in the real world, there is no door underneath the depths of your swimming pool. There is really no way_

_children can go off to the wondrous realm of Aunt T. unless they find it on their own._

_Per contra, in the case of the Sharewood family, the two children found the door. They escaped at the best time possible. They were_

_never seen by the Indiana town again._

_Instead they lived on in The Twilight Zone._


End file.
